Related Stories

Lew Leone is the vice president and general manager of WNYW-FOX 5. He is taking to the airwaves with his thoughts on current affairs. It's called "Lew's View." The views expressed are not necessarily those of the station or its employees.

---

In this commentary, Mr. Leone talks about the need for a commonsense teachers contract.

---

Former TV journalist Campbell Brown visited Good Day New York and explained her efforts to urge Mayor Bill de Blasio to negotiate a commonsense contract with the teacher's union. It is very difficult to argue with her three positions.

The first position for students calls for common sense language in the contract relating to layoffs, hiring, school turnaround, sexual misconduct, teacher absences and teachers between jobs.

The second position for parents asks for better access to teachers and longer parent teacher conferences.

And the third position for teachers recommends higher starting pay, rewards for great teachers, support staff to relieve teachers of paperwork, and extended pay for teachers on military leave.

The proposals are extremely clear and well presented on the commonsense contract website as you can see from the images. Why should you care about this?

Well the New York City teachers union -- the UFT -- otherwise known as the keepers of the status quo, didn't want to negotiate with Mike Bloomberg therefore teachers have been working without a contract for 5 years.

Mayor de Blasio is expected to break the bank and reward the UFT with retroactive pay raises and a new long-term contract.

Campbell Brown is simply trying to raise awareness around some of the archaic work rules in the contract which should be changed in the current negotiations.

These deals are typically done behind closed doors and parents have no say in the process.

Now is your chance if you agree with Campbell's commonsense proposals to finally have a say, just go to commonsensecontract.com and sign her petition to tell the mayor and the UFT that students and parents deserve a better deal.

You can view and respond to Mr. Leone's commentaries by clicking here: